President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders have reached an agreement on a plan, called the "Budget Control Act of 2011," to pair an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit with spending cuts and to create a special committee to recommend bigger savings for a vote later this year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thirty-six years after Richard Nixon testified to a grand jury about the Watergate break-in that drove him from office, a federal judge on Friday ordered the secret transcript made public.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Johnson & Johnson said Thursday that it's reducing the maximum daily dose of its Extra Strength Tylenol pain reliever to lower risk of accidental overdose from acetaminophen, its active ingredient and the top cause of liver failure.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- If the government can't pay all its bills come Wednesday, odds are it will pay bondholders. Social Security and Medicare recipients will be high on the must-pay list, too. Likely losers: federal workers in jobs deemed non-essential, private contractors and state and local governments.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Among the wildflowers and native grasses in the garden atop Chicago's City Hall stand two beehives where more than 100,000 bees come and go in patterns more graceful, but just as busy, as the traffic on the street 11 stories below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The debt ceiling battle could produce an unlikely winner: smartphone users.

Strokes have spiked in the U.S. among pregnant women and new mothers, probably because more of them are obese and suffering from high blood pressure and heart disease, researchers report.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Speaker John Boehner hastily rewrote his stalled emergency debt-limit bill again Friday, and former conservative foes began climbing aboard. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid signaled he's ready to push ahead with his own version, and President Barack Obama declared "we're almost out of time" in a wrenching political standoff that has heightened fears of a market-rattling government default.

MIAMI (AP) -- Sonia Rodriguez whipped up milk-and-espresso drinks at the Latin American Grill as talk turned to a new push in Congress to tighten restrictions on travel to Cuba. Like growing numbers of Cuban-Americans, she's worried about the U.S. reinstating strict limits on how often she can visit relatives and even how much money can be sent to loved ones on the island.